HTML problems

I bought a used computer with Windows XP in it. Because I have "years old" files from 1997 using html in Windows 98SE,
the html got scrambled by XP, and I eventually had to re-install Win98SE to keep from re-doing about 600 files over again.
I'm curious - Is there any new development, or an outside program that would convert my "old" html to whatever XP requires
so I could put XP back in my machine??? I've tried to write to Microsoft, but you know how that goes...........nowhere.
I can live with Win98SE, but I keep hearing that XP is so much better and more stable...........any info would be appreciated.
And, thanks for past help. <img src=/S/confused.gif border=0 alt=confused width=15 height=20>

Re: HTML problems

First, an admission that I'm not a web designer or an HTML "expert," but I can't fathom how WinXP would scramble an HTML file. HTML files are after all just plain text files and I don't think the OS cares about them. Are you talking about Internet Explorer 6 or some other sub-application of WinXP. If there's some snippet of non-confidential material you could post as an attachment, without it being too large, I'd like to see an example that I could try to load. I too have a number of HTML files that are several years old and am not aware of any problems.

Re: HTML problems

If the problems you are having was true, then there would have been millions of us that could not view any of the pre XP web pages. I am sure that would have been found way before public release of XP.

If you can not post a file as Al has requested, you will need to tell us what happens in detail when you were using XP.

Re: HTML problems

I still have perfrectly good html files that I created years ago on Unix, then transferred to Windows 9x and then to Windows 2000. HTML is a very simple standard and I have never heard of an old html file that couldn't be read by a modern browser - unless it had a major bug in the html that happened to get through an old browser.

Re: HTML problems

I have looked at your two images, and they are certainly different. I looked at the first one using Internet Explorer 6.1 running under Windows XP with no problems.

I am not quite sure what you mean when you say that upgrading to Windows XP scrambles the web page. Does your problem happen when you:
<UL><LI>view the web page from a web broser running on Windows XP?
<LI>edit the web page using notepad on Windows XP?
<LI>serve the web page from a web server running under Windows XP?
<LI>or something different?[/list]StuartR

Re: HTML problems

Looking at the two pages, the GIF images themselves are clearly different in each case. Is it this reduction of image size that's the problem? If so, I don't think it's an XP problem - more likely whatever was used to generate the page. If you did it from Word, as a complete web page, might it be possible that Word rescaled your images? With regard to the border around images, I remember this being an "issue" with Front Page at some stage, which insisted on setting border =1, even when there was no border intended... or it could have been those Front Page extensions or something. My first thoughts would be to use an HTML editor that has nothing to do with "MS-flavoured HTML".

Re: HTML problems

I made the html code in Notepad, then viewed the finished page in Internet Explorer before loading them onto the webpage,
which displayed them exactly like Internet Explorer had. When I tried to view them using XP, the Internet Explorer display
looked like the simulation I made to show you what they looked like, except that they also had small borders or boxes around them. Since I switched back to Win98SE, the problem has gone away - that's why I thought the reason for the change was XP.........Hope this clears things up?

Re: HTML problems

Yes, that explains it better. I misinterpretted the source of the "scrambling" you mention. I'd concur with Stuart that the problem seems to be with a web client or whatever is serving up the pages. I'm afraid I'm of no help at all in this area.

Re: HTML problems

I have an idea. Could someone please copy and paste the code from:http://geocities.com/raybee_91335/blu-slope.html, then using an XP op system, display the html with Internet Explorer??? Not on the internet, but through Internet Explorer on their machine.......If it displays correctly (like the webpage), then I can accept that there's something within this machine that caused it rather than XP itself. Changing to XP was the ONLY variant in this
whole sequence of events........before XP, IE displayed OK, the webpage displayed OK, the code was stable and reliable.......
that's why I blamed the problem on XP, rather than some of the things you guys have mentioned. I really appreciate the feedback.

Re: HTML problems

I copied the code & images onto my computer and opened it in Internet Explorer and Firefox on Windows XP Pro system. It displayed correctly in both browsers. It also displayed correctly in Frontpage 2003 & the preview pane of PowerDesk Pro.

Re: HTML problems

Thanks a lot, Tony -
I guess my search for the problem has to be modified.........I wonder what could have happened to this particular machine to
cause what happened? I'll round up somebody locally and do some experiments on settings, etc. Appreciate all the
help from everyone - it convinces me that this machine is definetly weird!

Re: HTML problems

For what it's worth, I saved the files too, except that I first deleted all the <img src=/w3timages/censored.gif alt=censored border=0> from Geocities! I run Mozilla 1.6 and the page looks as it should. I too saw it as should be in my copy of IE 6 and in addition, my HTML editor is called Hot Dog Pro and the file and "internal" preview looked OK. Since you never did answer Stuart's question above, I can only assume that "something" was misconfigured in the installation of XP. Was the WinXP installed as a clean install on a freshly formatted hard drive or as an upgrade ON TOP of an earlier OS? That could be the answer. I don't think you've got a hardware problem if you put Win98 on the same machine and all is OK.